SPOOKY TALE FROM SOUTH KOREA: WHY I AM SCARED OF ANTIQUES

 Occasionally I see some sickening hair that reminds me of something I heard when I was a little kid eavesdropping on my mom and hers. 

I especially loved listening in when she had guests over or was on the phone. I was small and quiet back then. Just small enough to tuck behind a chair, and quiet enough to hear everything.

This time, I was just sitting right next to my mom and grandmother, pretending to play with my toys. But..all along, I was listening as intently as I could.

Kids must do this all the time; listen to "adult" conversations and pretend to not know what is going on because (a) they don't want to admit to adults that they do "know" something that's considered "mature" since they don't want to explain how they learned said "adult knowledge" in the first place; (b) they don't want the adults in the house to start censoring their conversations. Because "adult" conversations are the juiciest ones of all. So the family tale I overheard that day went like this..

Grandmother : "Do you remember your cousin who drowned in your father's farm a long time ago?"

Mother : "Of course, how could I forget? That was a bad day for everyone."

Grandmother : "So you probably remember the backstory to this, right?"

Mother : "...?"

The story began with my mother's cousin coming home all excited with a random gift basket carefully wrapped in a beautiful silk scarf (bojagi in Korean). The silk scarf had Ancient Chinese (Han-ja in Korean) characters written all over in black ink. Although the basket was tightly wrapped in this silk scarf, you could still catch a glimpse of what was inside. There were expensive-looking fruits, a bag of rice, and even some cash rolled up tightly inside. The cousin was clearly very excited to show what he found in the middle of a busy street in Seoul to his mother. He allegedly loudly yelled to his mother "look what I found" as he was walking in the house--apparently, his mother was busy making dinner in the family kitchen when she heard him. He must have thought he was the luckiest boy in town that day. He told his mother that he cannot believe someone had just dropped this beautiful gift basket in the middle of the street, and he is the one who found it. 

He was already half-way done untying tight knots made with the silk scarf wrapping when his mother finally came out the kitchen to see what her son was excitedly telling her about. And she knew immediately what this thing was. It was a product of prescribed remedy from a witch doctor (Moo-dang in Korean) probably created to get rid of incoming tragic death in some witch doctor's client's family. She recognized it immediately because she remembered those black letters being written on silk scarves by town's witch doctors before. South Korea now has Christian faith as its largest organized religion, but older generations in South Korea sometimes still make routine visits to local witch doctors to get amulets created for the incoming year and consult personal problems and pay to receive ceremonial remedies that have their roots in Korean shamanism. I am sure my grandmother's sister (she is in her 80s now) grew up with many neighbors and family members who consulted local witch doctors for any unfortunate curve balls "predicted" by the same local witch doctors who also then prescribed sometimes expensive remedies.

<About photo:This was taken in a Korean History Museum in Seoul by me. The mannequin is dressed up in ceremonial clothes a typical Korean witch doctor wears(they tend to wear clothes from Chosun era). Two paintings/posters behind the mannequin show portraits of "spirits" that a typical witch doctor may claim she is in contact with. These "spirits" will be always addressed in extremely respectful way by a witch doctor(since she will usually tell you that she is nothing without the "powers" granted by these "spirits"). Here you can see examples of everyday objects/tools a typical witch doctor may use to predict clients' future or "cure/solve" problems in clients' lives.>

My grandmother's sister was not one of those ladies who were super into Korean shamanism but she found herself running to her son at full-speed when she witnessed her son trying to finish untie the knots and screamed at him to stop immediately. She then directed her son to take this thing outside the home right away without asking any question. "You don't know what you are messing with!" she said allegedly to her son. Her son told her that she was a fool for letting go of all these perfectly nice food and cash with irrational superstitious fears but he followed her order and returned home empty handed.

It was that summer when her son mysteriously drowned at a reservoir at my grandfather's farm. The water was shallow, and all the family kids were at that reservoir when it happened. My mother's older cousin blamed himself that day for failing to notice something was wrong earlier. He felt that as the oldest of all of them, he failed to keep his younger brother safe.

Mother : "Stop this nonsense talk, mom. That's really enough. Accidents happen you know."

Grandmother : "It really happened! What do you know? The big difference between your generation and my generation is that we actually suspect something sinister when a perfectly nice gift basket full of expensive things are sitting int he middle of a busy street in Seoul. Only if he had known nothing in life is free!"

O.K. I don't actually probably remember the exact dialogues and details of the this. I was in first grade after all when I overheard this conversation. But I promise you, this is probably damn close to what actually was said. 

<About photo:beautiful backyard photo taken by me during my trip to South Korea in 2019 with my husband, aka Revolting Rooster. This backyard is decorated with "old" decorative/architectural components and designs.> 

Stories like these, passed down from our grandmother's and great grandmother's generations, are quite commonly heard in South Korea. I have countless memories of watching spooky television shows and movies in hot summer months* that started with some random cursed objects or furniture bought in antique/second-hand stores. One particular story that is still etched on my mind had to do with a cursed wig that was unethically produced using hair from corpses that were left unclaimed from a morgue. In the show, the wig would climb down a fancy display case  using multiple strands of hair like legs--definitely there were some uncanny resemblance to how an octopus walks under water--and strangle the poor sales clerk who was left in charge to lock up the store after everyone was gone. Now, I cannot help but chuckle a bit thinking of this ridiculous imagery which was a result of a poor production quality but the premise of the show, at the time, was enough to make me stop myself from going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. 

Given how many horror movies/shows start with some kind of used items, it is perhaps no surprise why some even younger population in South Korea still hesitate to go shopping at antique stores or thrifting (I mean... me!)

<About these figures: It says on top that there has been consistent growth observed in second-hand stores apps' users in 30s and 40s age categories. As of March of 2020, the total number of app users recorded for all apps for second-hand market, is about 4.92 million. Compared to January of 2019, this number has increased by 76% (as shown in the first graph in blue bars). When you look at the breakdown by age and sex, you see that the most app users are in their 30s and 40s. In all age group, more men were using the app than females (women are shown in red & men are shown in blue in the graph on the right side).Source: Mobile Index (2020)>

However, as (shown in the graphs above) the economy slowed down severely after the COVID-19 outbreak world-wide and shopping online became easier than ever thanks to South Korea's high-speed internet and increased use of smart phones, opportunities for antique/second-hand stores are growing fast in South Korea. According to this report, "second-hand" apps' users who said they are in their 60s and up are only added up to 4.6%--and this isn't too surprising considering that ...

1) this age group may not be active mobile users/online shoppers in general

2) they may still have some negative feelings about using used products (culturally speaking)

3) the positive feeling associated with the idea of re-using and reducing throwaways for the environment is something that is much more conscious among younger generation.

*In Korea, horror movies and television shows are mostly released and promoted in hot summer months. This has to do with a long history of Korean marketing campaigns associating popular verbal phrase that describes human physiological responses to scary and shocking scenes--(e.g., movie so scary that will give you chills down your spine)--with the common desire to stay cool in humid months of South Korea. You will see many movie posters in South Korea stating something like "expect the unexpected! They are coming...to get you. All your hair will stand up and you will stay cool. In theaters soon!" 

You can download the full Mobile Index 2020 report (ONLY available in Korean) from this Naver blog site. Just click on the arrow down button & save it to your laptop. Or... if you are not feeling completely safe yet to do this, you can go visit here and see the screenshots of the parts of the report.